The Primary Way

Philosophy of Yijing

Chung-ying Cheng

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781438479286, 9781438479279
• eBook ISBN: 9781438479293
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

A unique work on the underlying ontology, cosmology, and moral philosophy of the Yijing.

In The Primary Way, the distinguished scholar of Chinese philosophy Chung-ying Cheng synthesizes his lifetime of work on the Yijing, also known as the I Ching or Book of Changes. Cheng offers a systematic engagement with the classic Chinese text as a philosophy that is still valuable and relevant today. In contemporary philosophical terms, Cheng has developed the ontological hermeneutics of the Yijing as well as its philosophical methodology of symbolic reference in a holistic and onto-generative system of trigrams and hexagrams. The book is organized around eight themes that illuminate Cheng's interpretation of the Yijing as a philosophy for creative human action and transformation. He demonstrates how the philosophy of change in the Yijing embodies early Chinese ontology, cosmology, epistemology, and virtue ethics in the interpretation of divinatory judgments. Cheng's work shows how the philosophy of change contains a vision of humanity as creatively related to heaven and earth, and how it gives positive meaning to any change as part of a ceaseless creativity. With this understanding, it enables humanity to develop its potential as a partner of heaven and earth.

CHAPTER 1

Introducing the Yijing (易经)

Six Stages of Development and Six Topics of the Yijing

Based on my best understanding from what we know from the history on the formation of the Yijing tradition, I will give a theoretical reconstruction of the origin and formation of the book known as Yijing 易经 (Book of Changes), which has been acknowledged as the leading classic among all the Confucian classics (variously known as Six Classics or Five Classics) since the Han Dynasty of the first to second century BCE when a chair for Yijing was established in the Academy of the Court.1 A theoretical reconstruction is a projected characterization of the content of the book with regard to what reality it is intended to represent and what truth it will bring to bear on life. It will also cover a process of development from a source in experience. It will show a point of view or a perspective aiming at reasonable understanding that addresses a vision of value and some issue of life. It will also endeavor to preserve coherence and consistency of thinking with a sense of reality.2

First, it must be made clear: we are dealing with a received text of the Yijing that has its own history after it was historically composed and formed. It was handed down to us from the Han Period. Without going into archaeological, historical, and linguistic details, the present version of the Yijing includes sixty-four six-line gua 卦 (hexagrams) as doubled from the eight three-line gua (bagua 八卦 trigrams) and their interpretations in the form of divinatory judgments. As we shall see, the line in a hexagram or trigram is called a yao 爻 (a line of movement). The movement is designated as either yin 阴 or yang 阳, indicating motion or rest. As there are six lines, the possibilities of combining yin and yang on each line lead to a number of 2 to the 6th power, which comes exactly to sixty-four hexagrams. Looked at this way, the sixty-four hexagrams are just a sequence of sixty-four combinations of yin and yang movements, and these movements are meant to represent the movements of change in things in the world. As to where the sixty-four hexagrams come from, we can see that the hexagrams are developed from eight trigrams by way of doubling the trigrams, as indicated in the calculation of eight trigrams multiplied by eight trigrams. This would be a natural process to take place in history as early as before the Zhou (circa 1200 BCE–771 BCE) in light of the fact that the judgments for some of the hexagrams could be dated back to even earlier times before the Zhou. Nevertheless, the system of sixty-four hexagrams with their appended judgments is reputed to be composed or edited in the hands of King Wen (文王) of the Zhou (in approximately the early twelfth century BCE). It is therefore known as Zhouyi 周易, or Yi of the Zhou, to distinguish it from the Yi of Shang and the Yi of Xia, the names of two earlier dynasties recorded in the Liji 礼记 (Book of Rites).

Apparently, the Yijing book (now also referred to as Zhouyi in the form it has come to from King Wen) is based on sixty-four types of divination represented by sixty-four hexagrams. This indicates a long tradition of divination (bushi 卜筮)3 that gives rise to the symbolic representation of the divination in a system of symbols. Without archaeological, historical, and linguistic details, it suffices to say that after exploring excavated bronze utensils and silk and bamboo inscriptions, little doubt remains that the practice of divination is well rooted in the beginning of agriculture in early China.4 That it could begin at that juncture is because people had reached a settled form of life and thus could acquire a system of symbols through learning that would be adequate for representing human situations together with a background understanding of how things originate and relate in processes of development as well as in an experienced actuality of world. It is a matter of constructing a useful system of cosmology with cosmogony and cosmography that would serve the purpose of promoting and enhancing agricultural land-farming according to knowledge of seasons of time. Besides, people have also developed a method of making fair composition of a representation (namely gua) of the human situation and a method of applicable interpretation models for the symbolic representation of human situations.

In light of recent textual research and archaeological findings, the antiquity of the Yijing is not to be doubted. The pertinent question is in which way the practice of divination is conducted and how prediction and interpretation are to be made before the book is formed and how early the book can be said to have been first developed. To answer this question, one must first understand how the book is organized.

The original text of the Yijing, known as the jing 经, is comprised of a system of sixty-four symbols, hexagrams analyzable in eight times eight (8 x 8) combinations of subsymbols (gua, trigrams), each of which has a name describing or indicating what the symbol stands for. Each symbol, called an iconic-indexical symbol, is to be attached to a judgment (ci 辞) as result of general prognosis and valuation for a given situation to which the symbol applies, and which is determined by divination. Each line of the hexagramatic symbol is further numerically named and given an individual prognosis and valuation for action. All else in the form of comments and explanations on either the whole symbol or lines of the symbol are called commentaries (zhuan 传). These commentaries are traditionally known as the Yi Commentaries (Yizhuan 易传) or “Ten Wings” (Shiyi 十 翼), and are composed of the “Tuan 彖 Commentaries” (two parts), the “Xiang 象 Commentaries” (two parts), the “Wenyan 文言 Commentary,” the “Xici 系辞 Commentaries” (two parts, entitled “Xici Shang 系辞上” and “Xici Xia 系辞下”), the “Shuo 说 Commentary” (also known as the “Shuogua 说卦”), the “Xu 序 Commentary,” and “Za 杂 Commentary.” They are generally regarded as composed by Confucius or his first-generation disciples.

The Yijing’s complex organization supports a finding that the book is the result of a process of evolution from the very beginning of the use of cosmic symbols for understanding and participating in natural processes to the final abstract and abstruse formulation of a comprehensive system of cosmology, culture, and ethics. The final formulation would have taken place in a later era when philosophical minds and reflective reason became most active. As such, the Yijing book probably went through six stages of development with regard to its being interpreted by human researchers.

Stage 1: Comprehensive Observation and Natural Cosmology

The first stage of development of the Yijing is that of the Comprehensive Observation (guan 观) of the natural world or natural cosmology.5 This stage likely began during the late Neolithic period (6000 BCE–2000 BCE),6 during the time of the domestication of sheep. Legend has it that the first of the great noble emperors, Fuxi 伏羲 (2952–2386 BCE), used guan to observe and to understand the world. The guan stage probably continued until the founding of the first Chinese dynasty, the Xia Dynasty, which arose from a succession of sage-kings and ultimately was founded by the Great Yu. According to legend, this dynasty began around 2100–2000 BCE and continued until 1600 BCE.

During this time, early ancestors of Chinese people, having spread out over the central plains along the Yellow River, experienced climate changes and seasonal changes in different geographical locations. It may not escape from the sagely among them that climate and terrain may make tremendous differences to the lives of people. The right combination of climate and land could mean harvesting and flourishing of life, whereas a weather disaster such as drought and flood could cause famine and destruction despite efforts made by man to survive. The world was a totality and seen as a whole, with human beings an essential and vital part of it. Guan was the panoramic overview or comprehensive observation of the entire natural world. So, for example, the people of this time would see the evening sky as a whole. However, in addition to seeing the totality of the world, the ancient Chinese also became aware that changes take place over a span of time. However, changes did not occur over the same period of time for all objects. Some changes may be so small that the naked eye could not observe the actual changing event. Some changes may be so large and take place over such a long period that, similarly, the naked eye could not observe the actual change. Nevertheless, the ancient Chinese were aware that changes occurred and that these changes followed patterns or cycles. As a result, the people began to formulate cycles of years, days, and even day and night to reflect the changes observed in nature. Thus, the guan showed people that change of all types—changes of forms of life, changes of time, changes of life, and changes of habits of growth—happen over differing periods of time.

Stage 2: Relating Present to Future and Making Divination

By the time of the Huangdi 黄帝 (Yellow Emperor) (2697 BCE–2598 BCE), it may be conjectured that an early civilization, complete with agriculture, settlements, and political organization had arisen. With these developments came the need to think about, plan for, and act with an eye toward the future. However, action with regard to the future requires knowledge in order to be successful. In the absence of observable knowledge about the future gleaned through the use of guan, one must make predictions. The method used to glean information about the future was called divination.

The practice of divination requires one to read burned cracks in the tortoise shell or oxen bone as signs signifying a certain message emanating from the objective situation in nature with reference to the situation at hand. Such a reading requires a background reference in which the signs can be described as messages and as advice. Divination practices allowed the diviner to interpret knowledge from what he knew about a good or fortunate omen and what he knew about a bad or misfortunate omen. As such, the original good and bad must be understood in terms of fortune (ji 吉) and misfortune (xiong 凶), disaster (huo 祸), blessing (fu 福), danger (li 厉), blame (jiu 咎), and regret (lin 吝). The valuation system of divination gradually developed into a general theory of good and bad according to which, whatever leads to fortune, security, praise, and hope for more of the same is considered good, namely that which is to be desired, whereas whatever leads to misfortune, danger, blame, and regret is considered bad, namely that which is to be avoided.

This association of human feelings and desires with events and actions reflects and reveals how the ancient human came not only to discover the world as relating to his human personal self but also to discover the human personal self as relating to the world around him. This theory further leads to the presumption and understanding or belief as to how good and bad could be based on abilities and mental dispositions, which could in general generate those things that are c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introducing the Yijing (易经): Six Stages of Development and Six Topics of the Yijing
• Chapter 2 Yijing as Creative Inception of Chinese Philosophy
• Chapter 3 Interpreting a Paradigm of Change in Chinese Philosophy
• Chapter 4 Inquiring into the Primary Model: Yijing and Chinese Ontological Hermeneutics
• Chapter 5 Philosophical Significance of Guan: From Guan (观) to Onto-Hermeneutical Unity of Methodology and Ontology
• Chapter 6 Yin-Yang (阴阳) Way of Onto-Cosmic Thinking and Philosophy of the Yi (易)
• Chapter 7 On Harmony as Transformation: Paradigms from the Yijing
• Chapter 8 Zhouyi (周易) and the Philosophy of Wei (Positions 位)
• Chapter 9 Li (理) and Qi (气) in the Yijing: A Reconsideration of Being and Nonbeing in Chinese Philosophy
• Chapter 10 On the Yijing as a Symbolic System of Integrated Communication
• Chapter 11 On Zhu Xi’s Integration of Yili (义理) and Xianshu (象数) in the Study of the Yijing
• Chapter 12 On Timeliness (Shizhong 时中) in the Analects and the Yijing: An Inquiry into the Philosophical Relationship between Confucius and the Yijing
• Chinese Glossary
• English Key Terms
• Notes
• A Bibliography of the Yijing in Chinese
• A Bibliography of the Yijing in Western Languages
• Works Cited
• Index
• Back Cover